Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell just did something no WNBA backcourt has managed in 15 years. Clark took June’s Eastern Conference Player of the Month award, followed by Mitchell winning the same in July. Together, they are the first duo to sweep the honor in consecutive months since Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen pulled it off for the Minnesota Lynx back in 2011. Coach Stephanie White capped the run, adding her own Coach of the Month honor for the same stretch.

Interestingly, Indiana sits at 19-11 (sixth in the standings) in a playoff race with no margin left for a bad week. Hence, the timing matters here the most. Clark and Mitchell finding this form was nothing but Fever’s answer to the pressure building on them.

Clark’s June was the kind of month that rewrites record books. She averaged 21.9 points, 4.0 rebounds and 8.2 assists across 10 games, shooting 45.6% from the field, second in the league in assists per game for the month. Between June 11 and June 22, she strung together six straight games with at least 20 points and five assists, a new WNBA record, and a mark every other player in league history has combined to hit only three times. A back injury cut the streak short, pulling her from Indiana’s June 24 game against Phoenix in the third quarter, after she’d already logged 19 points and eight assists.

Mitchell picked up exactly where Clark left off. Indiana went 8-2 in July on the back of her scoring, 272 points across 10 games, a staggering 27.2 per night. She’s now scored 20 or more in 14 consecutive games, the second-longest streak in WNBA history behind A’ja Wilson’s 15-game run, ten of them coming in July alone.

Clark isn’t shy about what it’s like to play alongside that kind of run.

“It’s really fun,” Clark said, as per a Fever official release. “It obviously makes my life easy, so I just try to give her the rock. It feels like every time she shoots it, it goes in. Just the pace that she plays with, she always puts the defense under stress. It’s really fun to witness up close, and you know, she’s a hooper, and she carries herself in the most professional manner.”

Mitchell, for her part, isn’t interested in the spotlight.

“[I’m] definitely grateful, definitely humble,” Mitchell said after scoring 33 points against the Liberty. “I just think that there’s always a bigger purpose behind it. I’m not a stat person.”

Indiana is doing well at the moment, but the recent loss against the number one seed Minnesota Lynx exposed the gaps in their style of play, especially playing defense.

Defensive Issues Remain A Cause Of Concern For The Fever

The offense has carried Indiana all season. The Fever have strung together a WNBA-record six straight games scoring 100 or more points, and contrary to their reputation, the defense has actually held up, a 101.8 rating that ranks fourth-best in the league. The real issue shows up in a narrower place: closing out games against the teams built to win in May and still winning in September.

That gap was on full display August 2 in Minneapolis. The Lynx, the league’s best team at 25-6 and riding a 10-game win streak, put up 64 points in the first half alone, shooting 57%, and held on for a 108-100 win that snapped Indiana’s own five-game streak. Mitchell refused to fade, dropping 37, her fifth 30-point game of the season. Clark matched her with a 19-point, 10-assist double-double. It still wasn’t enough against a Minnesota team playing at that level, and Clark didn’t look for excuses afterward.

“We were just a little bit of a step slow,” she said of the defense. “Proud of our group for finding ways to adjust, and that’s what you have to do versus a really good team.”

The deeper problem isn’t a single bad night, it’s what happens when the top of the rotation has to do everything. When Clark’s back issue sidelined her earlier this season, Mitchell absorbed the playmaking load on top of her own scoring; over her last 14 games, she’s averaging 27.6 points on 52.4% shooting. But the more structural gap sits behind Aliyah Boston. Indiana has no proven answer for her minutes off the floor, and without her, the Fever lose their rim protection, get worked over on the boards, and hand physical teams second chances they shouldn’t get.

Once the perimeter defense breaks down, the interior players are left to clean up messes that shouldn’t be theirs to clean, and that usually means fouls instead of stops. Fouls put opponents in the bonus early, and a team in the bonus early is a team that’s already blunted Indiana’s biggest weapon: its own scoring runs. That’s exactly the pattern that surfaced against Minnesota.

White knows the fix has to come from her end of the bench. She’ll get an immediate chance to test it, hosting A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces on Thursday, August 6, another measuring-stick game against a team built for the postseason.